Like this:

Hi Joey, Nice to see you at Khan Studio and Good Morning Gloucester Gallery on Thursday.

Attached please find a picture of some Pink Angels representing GMG today in Wakefield/Reading with our pink "Hope" duckies. Our team is training for the Breast Cancer 3 Day this July in Boston (60 miles for a Cure!). Today’s training walk was 17 miles. We brought along the ducks and GMG bumber sticka for extra inspiration. Take care, Liz Dooley

Spread The GMG Love By Sharing With These Buttons:

Like this:

Hey Joe n’ Gang!
Here is an amusing response to Joey’s rant at the Lycra weenies the
other day. It’s about being a cyclist in Gloucester and how
challenging that can be as well.
I also included a photo of myself to be used as admissible evidence at
my commitment hearing.
Have a good one! -Jim
—————————————————–

I’m enormously glad that Joey has decided to expose the yawning divide between cyclists and drivers in our fair city. A few days ago he gave the motorists’ side, from the perspective of being stuck behind recreational bikers riding three abreast preventing anyone from passing. Annoying? Yes. But I think we can all agree people in cars are prone to some fantastically stupid behavior as well. Yesterday I was stuck behind a shirtless dude in a K-Car with an unbelted toddler and throwing lit cigs and used scratch tickets out the window. A couple of years back I watched guy doing fishtails at Lanes Cove who wound up careening sideways, right over the edge. When he climbed out into the low tide muck I was treated to the most gloriously feathered mullet I have seen on a man since the 80’s. Oh if they only gave MacArthur Genius Awards for maintaining outdated hairstyles, he would have been a shoe-in (otherwise, not so much).

As far as cycling goes, allow me to provide the perspective from the other side. Not from the lycra-wearing sport cyclist, but from a guy who uses his bike to get to and from the train station most days as part of my commute. I’m a utility cyclist, just trying to get somewhere like everybody else and let me tell ya, friends, it ain’t no picnic neither.

Riding a bike in Gloucester is as close as most of us will hopefully ever come to surviving in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. We have narrow, crowded streets that are constantly being torn up. There are innumerable jacked-up diesel work trucks racing to and from jobs, tinted-window Hondas thumping around to lethal levels of bass, stressed-out minivan moms late for the game with murder in their eyes and befuddled tourists in rental cars trying to find the Starbucks. Add to that the zombie-like pedestrians who shamble blindly into the road, blitzed-out from whatever mind-altering chemicals they have on board and there you have my afternoon commute from Gloucester Station to East Gloucester via Prospect and Rogers Streets. Oh, and everyone mentioned above is on a cell phone. Don’t get me wrong- this is all exactly what makes riding in Gloucester pure unadulterated awesome. The most physically demanding part of my workday at present is pretty much faxing, so I welcome the rides to and from the train as my twice daily chance to crank up my pulse and stare death a few times in the face before I get home and do some laundry. Typically I try to see the others moving around the city as fellow participants in an elaborate dance but I, like Joe, have a few grievances to air since we’re on the topic:

1. I am not the enemy. I am on a bike. You are in a car. Let’s think of each other as mutual beneficiaries of incredible advances in transportation technology that would have made our foot-bound ancestors weep with envy. Rest assured I’m doing my best to keep out of your way, but I’m highly averse to drawing my last breath while being ground under the wheels of a Kia. I’m therefore going to deploy all means at my disposal to prevent this even if it means slightly inconveniencing a few drivers along the way.

2. I will occasionally take up the middle of the road. You know why I’m doing this? To block you from passing me. Yes, I’m deliberately in your way. Am I just a massive dickweed? No (I’m so much more than just a massive dickweed). I’m doing this because if I don’t you’ll inadvertently squeeze me between your Nissan and the DPW truck that’s pulled up in front of Destino’s just as the driver opens his door. You see, I’m trying to maintain the highest possible speed to be less of an annoyance, but that also means I’m at greater risk to others and myself if people don’t see me. Greater risk to myself means I’m taking commensurate precautions against becoming an impromptu Jackson Pollock on the back of a FedEx van. And that’s why I’m taking up the lane for all of ninety seconds all the while pedaling as fast as I can to get somewhere safer. Like my couch.

3. I can’t stop as quickly as you can in your heavy car with its four large tires. My bike and I may not seem like much, but we can generate over two thousand pounds of forward momentum (F=MA) and yet have only a total of six square inches of tire area skidding along the greasy street. The only way I’m stopping short is if I slam into something (see above). So I’m bellowing like a Spartan when you blindly step out into the street, I’m maneuvering onto sidewalks when I get cut off and subsequently into yards and/or oncoming lanes of traffic when left no other choice. As Captain Sully Sullenberger said when he realized his stricken Airbus was not going to make it back to a paved runway: “Looks like it’s going to be the Hudson.” Hey, It’s not pretty, but you do the best you can with the options you have.

4. To add insult to potential grievous injury, the bicycling infrastructure here is a joke. Go to our two closest economic competitors in the global economy, China and Germany and there are bikes. Lots and lots of bikes. Bike lanes, bike shelters, bike parking, busses equipped to carry bikes, specialty cargo bikes, all kinds of bikes. I was on the amazing magnetic levitation train from Shanghai Airport a couple of years ago and I looked out the window to see what other technological wonders the Chinese were up to in their flagship city and what I saw were delivery guys on bikes with what appeared to be queen-sized mattresses strapped to their backs. I don’t want to confuse correlation and causation, but every high-tech hub in the world is lousy with bikes: Palo Alto, Cambridge, Seoul, Helsinki and bikes have become chic in Mumbai as well. In Gloucester we have the one faded bike lane on Rogers street everyone ignores, the train station has the bike parking on the wrong side of the tracks with no shelter and there is zero security (I’ve had one locked bike stolen there already).

You’d think what with the childhood obesity epidemic morphing our young people into enormous flesh-barges, our primary energy sources controlled by hostile lunatics and our love of all things mechanical that cyclists would be treated as American heroes. Instead people racing across town in SUVs on their way to get a Big Gulp honk at us. Oh, the irony.

If you experience bike rage, try and think that every bike you see is one fewer GI sent to some godforsaken country with an oil reserve or one less shady deal with a despotic foreign government. As you start to wind up because the cyclist in font of you moving marginally slower than the motorized traffic, think instead of that one fewer sketchy off shore drilling rig poised to annihilate an entire ecosystem. And when you see me puffing along up Highland Street, know that I’m one less case of chronic cardiac disease tacked onto the growing shared cost of health care. The other possibility is that I’m a soon-to-be fatal heart attack that will end my cost to the system once and for all. There, that feels better, right?

Spread The GMG Love By Sharing With These Buttons:

Like this:

That Kickstarter is the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects that needs people like you for projects like ours to succeed?

Kickstarter was founded in 2008 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler and is based in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. As of May 2012, Kickstarter had more than $230 million dollars pledged and more than 23,000 successfully funded projects. On May 18, 2012, The Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android raised $10,266,845 to become the most funded project in Kickstarter history.

Kickstarter is a crowd funding website that has funded a diverse array of endeavors, ranging from indie films, music and comics to journalism, video games, and food-related projects. One of a new set of fundraising platforms dubbed “crowd funding,” Kickstarter facilitates gathering monetary resources from the general public, a model which circumvents many traditional avenues of investment. People must apply to Kickstarter in order to have a project posted on the site, and Kickstarter provides guidelines on what types of projects will be accepted. Project owners choose a deadline and a target minimum of funds to raise. If the chosen target amount is not pledged by the deadline, no funds are collected (this is known as a provision point mechanism).

Money pledged by donors on successful projects is collected using Amazon Payments. Kickstarter takes 5% of the funds raised as their fee; Amazon charges an additional 3–5% for processing of pledge payments. These amounts are built into the project goal amount, as are costs of completing the project and fulfilling backer rewards. Kickstarter claims no ownership over the projects and the work they produce; however, projects launched on the site are permanently archived and accessible to the public. After funding is completed, projects and uploaded media cannot be edited or removed from the site.

There are presently two active projects on Kickstarter based in Gloucester:

Two prior Gloucester based Kickstarter projects included Karen Ristuben’s Plastics in Our Ocean to raise awareness of global ocean pollution and Dennis Lanson’s Opus 139 Project film about the C.B. Fisk Pipe Organ Company and its collaboration with Harvard University.

Please back and be a part of this awesome Tales of Bong Tree Islandproject, destined to go down in history, and receive a great reward (for a $25 pledge you will receive a signed copy of this 128 page full color illustrated historical fantasy based on Edward Lear’s poem The Owl and the Pussycat and the eternal gratitude of the owlpusses of Bong Tree Island and explorer Martine Bates of Gloucester). You can pledge as much as you like, or as little as $1. 348 people pledging $25 will fully back the balance of this project goal. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1997277714/martines-owlpuss-interviews-and-tales-of-bong-tree

Seems to me there should be at least 348 Good Morning Gloucester FOB’s willing to pledge $25 to help Tales of Bong Tree Island project succeed, as well as a group who would like to help Alison succeed with her project, Feel Good Food and Yoga. I have backed two Kickstarter projects myself, and it is very rewarding and fun to be a part of the success of someone’s creative endeavor.

Many together can accomplish what one alone cannot do. Because it requires the collaboration and support of many people, I find the Kickstarter model to be a very exciting way to accomplish a project. Now that you know about it, I hope other creative people with projects on Cape Ann will look into launching Kickstarter projects as well.

Sun is back and tonight there’s more live music in Gloucester than any other Monday this year. If you’re free right now, head on down to the Rose Baker Senior Center and catch Dave Sag and his Good Old Salty Jazz Band! See full live music lineup here.

Like this:

I was reading one of my favorite websites, www.barstoolsports.com a couple days ago and the genius writer David Portnoy goes on to explain how if you don’t build a nest around the toilet seat that you are deranged. See the photo below of Mr Portnoy’s technique-

Quote-

There is being a tough guy and then there is being an idiot. Not building a force field is just plain stupid

My theory is a bit different. I feel that much more scary and caveman is to not build a landing pad for your turds so you don’t get that dreaded blue splash-back.

You want your poop to land gently on the pad and the half a roll of toilet paper you crumple up at the bottom of the toilet to diffuse the splash so it doesn’t come back and hit your undercarriage. I think the splash-back is one hundred billion times more nasty than sitting on a seat that’s been cleaned several times a day.

Nothing worse than getting that blue stuff that’s all mixed up with god only knows whose poop and pee on your junk.

That’s just plain common sense and that’s why I always go with the toilet bowl landing pad over the toilet seat nest.

I go through about half a roll building my landing pads up but hey I gotta insure there’s no chance that any of that disgustingness ever comes up and splashes me.

Spread The GMG Love By Sharing With These Buttons:

Like this:

My Apology

To the two emailers and any other reader who was offended by my post “Gonads Wanted” please accept my sincere apology. Thank you for your polite and reasoned words. You hit a Nerve in my brain. I promise I will change my ways.

“Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.” Sid Caesar

Spread The GMG Love By Sharing With These Buttons:

Like this:

Some of our neighbors have roses right next to the sidewalk, and I took this photo with my iPhone the other day when it was raining. The two little round drops perched on top of the uppermost petal look like Muppet eyes to me… and the way it curls over is like a mouth. As if the rose were a character from Jim Henson’s imagination…

The Pitch: Send in the Smokeshows.

You won’t be getting any politically correct advice here so if you want to act high and mighty and deny the facts then stop reading now.

You want to pitch a story that you want to see get some traction? Send in the smokes. Find out who the media person is and if it’s a middle aged male reporter or media person you send in the hottest piece of ass PR broad you have on your staff. If the media person you are trying to reach out to is some middle aged or old cougar send in your biggest beefcake on staff.

It’s the same in sales. The Mrs got hired to work for Pfizer right out of college selling Viagra. Her first year out she won four sales award trips to exotic locations in the Caribbean and around the country. There would be about 40 other reps that won these sales awards from the different regions around the country. You want to know what 95% of them all had in common? You guessed it, they were all smokeshows.

You think they’re a bunch of dummies over at Pfizer? You don’t think with the zillions of dollars that company makes that they have their marketing strategy on point? They know what they’re doing when they hire smart, friendly attractive people, believe me.

Another analogy:

If you own a business you know how many different sales people come in pitching products. You get all different types of sales people all day long coming in to try to sell you cleaning supplies, office supplies, better rates on your electric bill, different phone services, ect ect ect…

After a while business owners look at sales people like lepers. We’re all way too busy to listen to the 30th sales pitch for phone service. You don’t think it’s the same way for a reporter who listens to his 30th pitch for a story about xyz for the 30th time?

So you send in the smokeshow or beefcake depending on the respective sales target. All of a sudden the middle aged business owner who probably hasn’t gotten a beaner from their wife or husband in forever is all ears. Now your chances of having that pitch at the very least listened to instead of a door being slammed in their face goes up tenfold.

So say you as a PR office manager have yet another dogshit story you need to pitch for a client. Send in the smokeshow. Send in the beefcake. Get that story placed.

This whole concept is probably one of those “master of the obvious” concepts but I feel it bears repeating.

Sex sells.

I’m not saying you gotta give oral to get that story pitched but if you want to go the extra mile….

Gloucester Webcam

The GloucesterCast Podcast

Free GMG Gloucester Sticker

As long as supplies last if any GMG folks want a bumper sticker but can't drop down the dock, just send a self addressed and stamped envelope longer then 7 and a half inches and I'll drop one in the mail for you.

Send the self addressed and stamped envelope to the dock at 95 East Main St Gloucester Ma 01930 care of Joey (put my name in big letters to make sure it gets to me)

Free GMG Gloucester Sticker

As long as supplies last if any GMG folks want a bumper sticker but can't drop down the dock, just send a self addressed and stamped envelope longer then 7 and a half inches and I'll drop one in the mail for you.

Send the self addressed and stamped envelope to the dock at 95 East Main St Gloucester Ma 01930 care of Joey (put my name in big letters to make sure it gets to me)